Things He KnowsThings She Knows
by Jaded
Summary: Booth and Brennan find themselves with other people, but this other man? This other woman? They see that there's more between Booth and Brennan than "just partners," and confront the two of them into admitting their feelings to one another.


**Things He Knows/Things She Knows**

Booth knows exactly the moment when he falters.

"Sweets, it is increasingly ludicrous for you or for anyone else for that matter, to imagine that Booth and I have anything beyond a professional partnership or friendship. While I understand that people often project romantic notions onto others where they perceive compatibility, it doesn't necessarily mean that it translates into real life. Isn't that right, Booth." She turns to look at him, her eyes wide, her face open and guileless. He is her partner. It's his duty to get her back.

There are things he knows: Parker's favorite joke, Jared's weakness for Oban 12 year-old Scotch, the number of catches Santonio Holmes made during the Steelers' Super Bowl win against the Arizona Cardinals in 2009, and how and where and how fast to fire off a quick sniper shot when there is a moving target within range. And he knows Bones. He knows her process when she looks at the cracks and nicks in a rib, in a femur, in a skull. He knows that what she sees isn't just bone but a life. He knows how to make her laugh, knows what she will order at a restaurant they've never eaten at before. He knows her heart is big and capable of great love, even if she doesn't let it be known openly, even if she doesn't know herself. And he knows that she believes in truth, that she will say what she believes to be true.

So when Bones says that she doesn't see there ever being a possibility for her and him to be more than friends, more than partners, he knows that she means it.

Because he would know if she loved him. And while part of him believed that maybe he'd feel this to be true one day—he imagined so over toasts about love and talks about marriage—when she says that the idea of she and him as something more intimate than they already are, he falters, and replies to her query, "Exactly."

On their way out, Sweets stops him short and pauses while Bones walks ahead.

"Booth, are you certain—"

"Sweets, first you tell me that my 'feelings of love' are due to my tumor or coma dream brain chemistry, or whatever, that these feelings aren't real—then you come up to conclusions about how Bones and I are in love—but just because you don't know your ass from your elbow where Bones and I are concerned, doesn't mean that I don't."

There are things Booth knows, but Booth isn't always right. Booth doesn't know everything.

A week later, he meets Avery Stark, a geologist working at the Smithsonian. He is with Parker looking at the gemstone exhibit, and she happens by, engages with his son over questions about phosphorescent stones, and asks him out before the afternoon is over.

While he hasn't made any offers to other women in the past year—maybe longer—because there's only been one woman for him, and she is always with him, even when she's not physically there, he hasn't taken anyone else up on their suggestion for a drink or for dinner, or for more. But when Avery asks, this time he says yes.

It is no coincidence that a week later Bones accepts a date with Andrew Hacker. But this is another one of those things that Booth doesn't know.

* * *

There are things she knows. She is, after all, Temperance Brennan. She knows more about bones than most people will probably _ever_ know about anything. But she doesn't know why she's angry, or, at the very least, she is unwilling to admit that she does know why.

She's been on the rampage for weeks and snaps at everyone—Angela, Cam, Sweets, the carry-out guy—if they find her in the wrong mood on the wrong day. Work is stressful, she tells them. By work she means Booth, but everyone knows that except for her.

In the late afternoon Booth speeds into her office and hands her a file. "Caroline just handed this to me. I brought it right over, thought you'd want to . . ."

She's abrupt. "Where is your 'cocky' belt buckle, Booth?"

"What, Bones?"

"You're not wearing your buckle." _The one I gave you to replace the one you lost after I saved your life._

"Oh, yeah." He scratches the back of his head. She knows what this means. It means he's stalling, that there's something he has to say that isn't being said.

"You have a date," she states, matter-of-factly. She knows all about Avery Stark. Booth can't hide it and people talk. Also, she knows how to use Google, and she knows that she is exhibiting claiming behavior, but she, Temperance Brennan? Doesn't care. A long moment passes, and she bites her lip before asking, "Did she buy it for you?"

"What? No. We're just going to a nice event at the Smithsonian tonight so I didn't think it was appropriate."

"Since when do you care about being appropriate, Booth? The socks? The buckle? You wear those to work because they aren't appropriate, because they quietly subvert the system. It's who you are."

His eyes are shuttered to her and it makes her ache in a way that reaches all the way down to the ends of each finger, each phalange, a pain that won't go away.

"Avery thought it wouldn't be appropriate."

Later that night Brennan kisses Andrew inside her apartment. It's the only time the ache inside subsides. It's the only time she feels her heart slow to something like normal.

* * *

Washington D.C. is a small town, so it isn't implausible that they would eventually end up at the same place together but not together, especially when that place is their place—Founding Fathers—when they show up with their respective dates.

Avery is the odd woman out, a stranger to everyone else, and Booth knows the only way to diffuse the awkwardness is to make introductions right away.

Tonight Bones is beautiful, but he knows that she is beautiful every night, every day of every moment. He knows that she's not beautiful tonight for Hacker—she does not present herself to impress anyone, she simply is who she is—but it hurts him that she'll never be beautiful like this with him on a night like this the way she is tonight with his boss.

Avery is beautiful, too. Brennan notices this immediately. She has strong features and possesses an almost ideal zygomatic arch. Brennan makes notes of her other traits: Avery's hair is a similar shade in brown to her own, though a bit richer, and her eyes, also blue, tend more toward gray. But she is shorter than Brennan, thinner, but less fit.

When she reaches out to shake Avery's hand and hears Booth introduce her as, "My girlfriend," Brennan feels her hand go slack in the other woman's, and she withdraws it quickly.

Brennan counters, "Avery, this is my boyfriend, Assistant Director Andrew Hacker. Booth, you two know one another." His maxilla clamps against his mandible, and she can hear the sound of his teeth snapping together. The two men shake hands, cordial. Booth says, "Sir."

They are seated at tables across the room from one another so that in order to see the other they have to crane to the left and right, respectively. They can feel each other's gravity pulling at one another from all the way across the room, but they hold tight to their seats, to what they think they know is the right thing to feel, the right thing to do. But by the end of the meal Booth is rubbing the muscles in his neck every 30 seconds and Brennan can feel the soreness radiating all the way down her back.

After the meal Andrew goes to get Brennan's coat from the check. Booth and Avery decide to stay for dessert and drinks. Brennan wonders if he will try to order her the cherry pie and if Avery will eat it. Her stomach does a tumble that she feels nauseated. She tries to blame it on the meal, but both she and Booth barely touched their food.

There is an empty spot at the bar next to Booth. She stares at it but doesn't move until Avery excuses herself to use the restroom Brennan slides into the spot on his other side.

"Will you be taking her back to your place tonight?"

"Bones! That is not an appropriate question."

"Oh. I remember. You care about appropriate now." It comes out much snippier than she anticipates. She's quick to apologize, because he is still Booth. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about, Bones," he says, looking not at her, but at his drink.

When she reaches out to touch him gently on the back he stiffens at her touch. Abashed, she almost pulls away when she feels him settle in, leaning against her hand. He turns to look at her and she thinks he will reach out to pull his face against hers, but he doesn't. Her heart is racing. This time she blames it on too much wine.

"You look really nice tonight, Bones," and the admiration is bright in his eyes. "I hope you're having a good time."

She nods and swallows the words that are stuck in her throat.

These are lies they tell themselves, and they both know it.

They talk and talk while they wait, about anything that goes around what they really want to say. It is almost fifteen minutes later when Booth looks up and realizes that neither Avery or Hacker have returned.

"Should we go look?" he asks, and they appear from a hallway, together, whispering into one another. This, they both know, is probably not a good sign.

"We need to talk," Hacker says.

"To me?" Brennan asks.

"To both of you," Avery says. She folds her hand into Booth's. "I'm not leaving with you tonight, Seeley."

"Isn't this a conversation we should, uh, be having in private?" he asks? He looks from her to Bones.

"No," Hacker says, "Because Temperance, dear Temperance, I'm afraid I'm not leaving with you tonight, either."

"Wait a second," Booth says, eyes lighting up, "did you two, you know, hit it off . . ."

"That's not it, Seeley. Even if we had the time to, which we didn't, this isn't about us, is it?"

"Us-us?" Booth asks.

"You and me?" Brennan asks, pointing to herself and then to Andrew.

"About Booth and Temperance," Hacker says. "Like it's always been."

"I don't know what that means," she says.

"Yes you do, Tempe," Hacker presses. "Avery only had to see it for one night, and she knows. People at the office notice, Booth, and Temperance, I'm sure at your lab everyone sees it as well. I tried not to, and it worked for a while, but I'm deluding myself, aren't I?"

"Seeing and believing is not mutually exclusive, Andrew."

"This isn't about believing, it's about knowing."

"Now I don't know what you mean," Booth chimes.

Avery translates. "You see two people and you think, they belong together. And Seeley, I like you so much, but I'm not your other person." Avery smiles a sad smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "She is. You're so blinded in love with her that I don't even know if you ever saw me to begin with."

"Nothing has happened!" Brennan insists.

Andrew leans in and kisses her on the cheek. "Well, there's still time. Goodnight, Temperance."

When Avery leaves, Booth asks, bewildered. "Now what?"

* * *

They stay there and drink for another two hours, going from tipsy to drunk and then back down to sleepy, tired.

Outside the moon is high in the sky, silver as a ladle, and it even manages to outshine the rows of orange streetlights that line the Washington streets. They fall into patterns without knowing it. Booth takes Bones's arm and they step outside together.

"I don't even know anymore," he says about nothing in particular.

"You know a lot of things, Booth."

"Thanks, Bones. You too."

He's still too drunk to drive. She came with Andrew. And while she could drive him home neither of them is ready to leave, so they walk to a bench on the street and sit down. It's late and it's mostly cabs coming by, honking at them. They're all waved on.

"I'll talk to Hacker on Monday for you, Bones. He's nuts if he lets you get away." Every word he means, every word hurts him to say.

"You don't need to do that, Booth."

"I mean it, I will, if you want me to."

"I don't, Booth. I know what I want. I don't want you to talk to Andrew. It's over."

Gravity pulls them together and they don't even know it's happening. Their shoulders touch, their hips press against one another and it's as though one begins only where the other ends.

"Booth?"

Brennan believes in the truth. She believes that truth is, metaphorically speaking, the best disinfectant. She believes that evidence reveals truth, and truth leads to justice. But lately she has learned that truths can be hidden. You lie to protect someone. Sometimes, you lie to protect yourself, but that to do so isn't always good. It isn't always for the best.

"What is it, Bones?"

She looks at him, searching for an answer. "Do you know what you want, Booth?"

"Whaddya mean? Like, right now?"

She struggles with the explanation. These types of conversations are Booth's forte, not hers. "Do you know what you want for yourself in this life?"

"That's an awfully big question, Bones."

"I know that I want to help you solve murders and to give those people and their families justice. I know I want to keep writing. And I know that I want to be happy. But I'm not happy, Booth." She bites her lip so it won't begin to tremble, because she knows she is stronger than this.

"That's no good, Bones. You should be happy. You deserve to be happy."

"Do you know what you want, Booth?" she asks again.

His shoulders sag. "What everyone wants. To have purpose. To love and be loved." He tangles his fingers with hers and glances up and looks into her eyes, and in it, she sees everything there is that she'll ever need to know if she wants it. The air is faint with spring. His palm is cool to the touch. She realizes that he knows what he wants, but has been hesitant. But there is a difference now. Now she knows. Now she knows.

He is the active one. She is the thinker. But she is also the scientist and she wants to do an experiment, be active. Experiments provide evidence. They generate proof, which is needed for truth. For knowing.

In the night sky, Andromeda waits for Peruses to rescue her. Cassiopeia sits on her throne. Orion hunts all evening with his dog, Sirius. And on Earth? On earth Brennan cradles Booth's face in her hands and tilts her forehead to push against his. His eyes darken. She doesn't know what it means, but she wants to find out.

"I want to be happy," she says. "I want you to be happy, too." He's thrumming with energy. "I know what I want, now. I want you to know, too."

Because sometimes it's not all thunderclaps or falling into one another. Sometimes it's just a quiet moment. A second or two that passes, then, another.

So she kisses him and he kisses her because it is the only reaction that is real or true. The taste of her mouth. The heat of his arms coming around her waist, pulling her closer, molecule to molecule.

Cars drive by. The night continues, as it always does.

And the earth spins and spins. Cassiopeia leaves her throne and explores the world she's yet to know. Andromeda frees herself from her chains, tired of waiting. Through the forest she flies, and there, meets Orion, and together they run off into the morning. A snake eats its own tail. Things falls into place as it should. A circle clicks together. Forever and ever and ever.

[the end]


End file.
